The One Thing Trump Won’t Ask Putin During Ukraine Meeting

For all his talk about Hillary Clinton and the Russia investigation, Donald Trump doesn’t seem to care that Russians hacked into sensitive government databases this year.

Answering questions outside the Kennedy Center Wednesday, the U.S. president appeared remarkably blasé about the foreign attack.

“There’s new reporting that the Russians have hacked into computer systems that manage U.S. federal court documents. I wonder if you’ve seen this report, and do you plan to bring it up with Putin when you see him later in the week?” asked one reporter.

“I guess I could. Are you surprised? Are you surprised? They hack in, that’s what they do,” Trump said. “They’re good at it, we’re good at it, we’re actually better at it.”

The New York Times reported Tuesday that a Russian entity had accessed the court case document system, as well as “recently compromised sealed records,” as part of a yearslong effort.

“Some of the searches included mid-level criminal cases in the New York City area and several other jurisdictions, with some cases involving people with Russian and Eastern European surnames,” the Times reported.

But the president’s shocking reaction to the attack also undercuts Republican efforts to reframe the 2016 Trump-Russia scandal against Clinton and former President Barack Obama: If he doesn’t care about Russian meddling under the nose of his administration, why would he care so deeply about reframing the narrative around the foreign power’s intervention nine years ago?

Trump is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday in Alaska to discuss a potential resolution to the war in Ukraine. It will be the first time that the Russian leader has stepped foot on U.S. soil in over a decade.

Laura Loomer’s deposition against HBO late-night host Bill Maher has offered absurd new insights into the woman unofficially tasked with federal staffing decisions.

The self-appointed “loyalty enforcer” has had enormous success influencing the Trump administration from the safety of her X account: An analysis by The Daily Beast found that at least 16 individuals were fired from the federal government after Loomer singled them out as covert Democratic agents.

But more than 200 pages of Loomer’s transcribed deposition in her defamation lawsuit against Maher shed light on the influencer’s beliefs and prerogatives—and illustrate her as a raving conspiracist rather than a fine-tuned firing machine.

In sprawling answers to completely unrelated questions, Loomer rants about George Stephanopolous, her lack of boyfriends, and her inability to get a White House press credential, in an interview that quickly flies off the handle.

In one particularly wild exchange, Loomer practically roasted Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene as someone who puts “roast beef in her pants.”

“What is your basis for saying she put Arby’s in her pants?” Maher’s legal counsel asked.

“She carries roast beef in her pockets,” Loomer responded.

“What is your basis for saying she puts roast beef in her pockets and in her pants?” the counsel pressed.

“Because I know she likes to eat at Arby’s,” Loomer said, further clarifying that she believes Greene puts the meat sandwiches in her pants and that she believed Greene would agree with that statement.

“Are you making a derogatory comment about her sex life by talking about Arby’s in her pants?” the counsel asked.

“No. I’m talking about Arby’s, the sandwiches. I’m talking about Arby’s. I would—I’m a very direct person,” Loomer said. “If I was making a derogatory comment, I would have said it.”

Immediately after the Arby’s exchange, Loomer offered another gem without provocation: She believed Senator Lindsey Graham is gay.

“Several of President Trump’s staff have told me in confidence that Lindsey Graham is gay,” Loomer said.

“Hold on, Ms. Loomer, there’s no question,” responded Maher’s attorney.

Loomer sued Maher and HBO in October after the late-night show host suggested that Loomer “might” be “fucking” Donald Trump. The far-right activist has since claimed that Maher’s joke tanked her odds at landing a White House gig.

Three days into his federal takeover of Washington, D.C., Trump said he plans to extend the crackdown beyond its month-long limit—with or without congressional approval.

The president on Wednesday was asked if he considers the 30-day timeframe during which he’s allowed, under the Home Rule Act, to control D.C.’s police before needing Congress’s OK as sufficient to address his imagined crime spike.

Before today, his administration’s answer to this question was seemingly yes; a White House official has said the operation is “expected to last 30 days.”

Now Trump is looking to extend it.

The president indicated Wednesday that his plan A is to put a “crime bill” before Congress “very quickly.” The bill, he said, will “pertain, initially, to D.C.” and ask “for extensions on that—long-term extensions, because you can’t have 30 days.” Trump noted that he expects unanimous Republican support for this (though, as Semafor reports, Senate Democrats seem able and committed to block an extension).

But Trump also expressed his willingness to bypass Congress to draw out the takeover. “Well, if it’s a national emergency, we can do it without Congress,” he said, adding that while he expects all Republicans to fall in line, “if I have to [call a national emergency], I will.”

Trump has flogged national emergency power more than any other recent president, exhibiting, per libertarian legal scholar Ilya Somin, “a dangerous pattern of invoking spurious emergencies to undermine the Constitution, threatening liberty and circumventing Congress.” So far during his second term, he’s declared a dozen such national emergencies—and is apparently ready to add to that list in order to impose his will, unchecked, on the American people.

The man at the head of President Trump’s cruel, indiscriminate immigration crackdown also has perplexingly bad taste in condiments, according to his wife.

Katie Miller, herself a former Trump aide, hosted Vice President JD Vance on her new self-titled podcast aimed toward right-wing women. The conversation turned to a classic icebreaker question.

“If you could only eat one condiment for the rest of your life what would it be?” Miller asked Vance.

“One condiment?” Vance asked.

“Yeah.”

“Does barbecue sauce count?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok. Barbecue sauce.”

“Not mayonnaise?” Miller asked, entirely unprompted.

“No,” Vance said, with a look of slight repulsion. “Mayonnaise is like … in low doses it’s good, but it’s kind of … like I had a buddy who used to eat french fries with mayonnaise. I thought that was disgusting.”

“It’s the only thing my husband eats,” Miller said plainly.

“With french fries, or like period?”

“Period.”

“OK, wow. Didn’t realize.”

“Yeah he’s only a mayonnaise guy.”

“Ok, I learned something new about Stephen I didn’t know.”

“Yeah it’s … whatever,” Miller replied, while Vance offered up a canned chuckle.

If this is the administration’s attempt to humanize Miller, Vance, and the various other Trump cronies who are carrying out this brutal, culturally based anti-immigration campaign, it isn’t working. And it should come as no surprise that someone who looks and acts as cartoonishly evil as Miller has his fries with a side of mayonnaise. That is disgusting.

Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise went on Fox Business to display his wild, willful ignorance regarding “public broadcasting.”

Scalise, who represents Louisiana, helped lead GOP efforts to eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which will put hundreds of free, local stations and shows in jeopardy. His response? His constituents should just pay for it.

“Getting rid of the USAID, public broadcasting—look, if you wanna go watch public broadcasting you can pay for it,” Scalise told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. “You know, people that wanna watch your show, and a lotta people do, they can pay good advertising dollars because it’s a popular show. If nobody’s watching your program—they’re too many options today in cable programming to have taxpayers funding to the tunes of tens of billions of dollars. We got rid of that wasteful spending, and it’s just the beginning.”

This is not how public broadcasting works, or any publicly funded service for that matter. American citizens already are paying for public broadcasting, and they were receiving worthwhile content in return, from emergency weather alerts to educational content like Ken Burns documentaries and Sesame Street. And even if they weren’t, Scalise’s argument would likely leave mostly poor Americans in rural areas he wants to take public broadcasting from paying even more.

This isn’t about waste, fraud, and abuse. It’s about Republicans and their yearslong war against Corporation for Public Broadcasting–funded institutions like PBS and NPR. For years, the networks have been targeted by conservatives, who frame them as deeply ideological propaganda rather than basic media. Only time will tell how their own constituents will be impacted.